The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-06-11
Complied for The Arkansdc Trdreier. SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY

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 During the last century 100 lakes in the Tyrol have subsided and disap- peared, according to Dr. A. Bohm, of the Geographical Society of Vienna.
 A French instrument for recording the rolling of vessel at sea was lately tried on the voyage of steamship from Bordeaux to Brazil, and made tolerably accurate register of the mo- tion.
 A recent computation makes the velocity of the solar system in space only about 10,000,000 miles a year. By a different method, another com outer had determined the rate to be about 525, 5,000,o00 miles in yeer.
 To aid in an analysis of noise, Prof. Crum Brown, of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, hopes to be able to make a machine to give very loud imita- tions of vocal sounds. He expects the apparatus to hiss with thousand d-man power.
 A new asparagus, found in the steppes of Akhal- -Tekis, lately an- neXed by Russia, is said to have stalks nearly as thick as mans arm and growing to height of five or six feet. In flavor it equals the best cultivated varieties.
 A leaf of the giant water lily V1c- tort" regi") has been known to meas ure 24 feet 94 inches in circumference. its weight being nearly If pounds. One of the flowers was feet } inches in circumference, with petals inches in length, and weighed 34 pounds.
 A German mathematician has calcu- lated that the snowfall of Central Ger many from December 19 to g weighed no less than 10000. .O0O tons in the area between 50 degrees and 52.5 degrees north latitude and be- tween degrees and IS degrees east longitude
 AN IMPORTANT FINA-TwO skele- tons dug up several m6aths ago in a cave near the Orneau, in Bklgium, ap- pear to belong to the oldest race of which any distinct recorS exists. These prehistoric individuals were contemporary with the mammoth. and inhabited the country before the great ice age. They were short and thick-set, with broad shoulders, SUD- porting long and narrow head, with an extremely low forehead.
 CHEAP SoDIUM.-Castner's new so- dium- preparing process, in which caustic soda is distilled with an inti- mate mixture of coke and very finely divided iron, proves capable of suc- cessful working on large scale. and 1t is expected to reduce the cost of sodium to less than a fourth of its present price, As sodium has been largely used in the production of aluminium, this will greatly cheapen the old method of obtaining what must become one of the most import ant metals of the future.
 HEAT FROM LIQUID FuEL.-Naph- tha, which is burned in locomotives in the Caucasus, yields ninety per cent of its theoretic heating power, while not more than sixty per cent can be realized from solid fuel. Pe- troleum is now the sole combustible of ships in the Caspian sea, and only half as much is required as was for merly used of coal. The maximum force obtainable from coal is said to be only two-fifths of that which pe- troleum may furnish, and the railway have shown that given weight of naphtha will take the place of eight and half times the weight of wood, although the theoretical differ ence is only as three to one.
 THE GAS MAKERS 'WAsTE.-In a re- cent address to the Royal Institute of London, Sir Henry Roscoe illustrated the amount of coloring power stored in coal by tables showiAg that one pound of the mineral yields magenta sufficient to color 800 yards of flannel, | aurine for 120 yards of flannel 27 inches wide, vermilline scarlet for g. 560 yards of flannel, or alizarin for 255 yards of Turkey-red cloth. Coal 1 tar, formerly troublesome waste of the gas industry, affords us about six teen distinct yellow colors, about twelve oranges, more than thirty reds, l about fifteen blues. seven greens, nine violets, and number of browns and 1 blacks, besides mixtures of the several chemical compounds, producing an almost infinite number of shades and 1 tones of color. It furnishes kairine. and thalline, which are valuable medicines in levers, and are in many respects superior to quinine for lowering bodily temperature. It also gives us the artificial aromatic including cumarine, the principle of ''new-mown hAy;;n vanil- line, from which is produced "essence